Joe Cocker opens final day of ‘Woodstock Music and Art Fair’ 50 years ago this hour #OnThisDay #OTD (Aug 17 1969)


Video: 'Complete Woodstock Video/audio footage' (116 clips; Aug. 17-18, 1969, represented in clips 79-116)

(Sunday, August 17, 1969, 2:00 p.m.-Monday, August 18, 1969, 11:10 a.m. EDT; during Woodstock) — 10 acts, including Jimi Hendrix, performed today on the final day of The “Woodstock Music & Art Fair,” a music festival billed as “An Aquarian Exposition: 3 Days of Peace & Music” at Max Yasgur’s 600-acre dairy farm in Sullivan County, New York, near the town of Bethel in the Catskill Mountains.

Widely regarded as a pivotal moment in popular music history, as well as the definitive nexus for the larger counterculture generation, some 32 acts performed outdoors through the late morning of Aug. 18, 1969. The audience peaked at an estimated 400,000.

Joe Cocker opened the third and final day of the event, performing “Dear Landlord” and ten other songs.

After Joe Cocker’s set, a thunderstorm delayed the next act, Country Joe and the Fish, for three hours.

The rest of the performers included Ten Years After, The Band, Johnny Winter, Blood, Sweat & Tears, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, Paul Butterfield Blues Band, Sha Na Na and Hendrix.

Cocker’s set was preceded by two instrumentals by The Grease Band.

The event was captured in the Academy Award-winning 1970 documentary film Woodstock and the accompanying soundtrack album.